


Of Lómion

by heartstone



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Childhood Trauma, Culture Shock, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Loneliness, Madness, Obsession, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Torture, Suicidal Thoughts, Torture, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 07:42:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19001365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartstone/pseuds/heartstone
Summary: They say the victors write history.***





	1. The Mole

I.

He was born late one grey winter evening when, for some precious moments in repose, Arda stayed as if in breath held. The dark boughs of the woodland shade made obvious the seldom spots in that thick weave of canopy where the trees thinned and from their lacy hem peeked the pale sky, a cold faded blue, washed out with fleecy clouds that were deepened with the coming dusk. And the purpling of the clouds was perhaps the only change in that silver evening, for the twilight was come- and that was a time of enchantment.

It was as the white-gold disk of the sun glided ever-lower he took his first breath. He did not struggle in his birth, nor did a shrill, shaky wail shatter that stifling silence as the cruel winter nighttime began. The world stayed as it was: indifferent. The solemn trees did not whisper as the wind’s breath was too weak to caress their needles. The Door of Night opened to swallow the sun, leaving only the slightest of suggestions of warmth on the branches that remained unburdened by a pall of snow.

In drowsy stupor he came to rest in his Mother’s arms and blinked open his eyes. Even as a newborn they were shaded by a dark lattice of heavy-lidded lashes which revealed irises that seemed to forever encapture in them the aspect of the dusk he was born: the colour of the sky in the east just as the sun falls fully below the horizon and the glint of ice like the smoothed facets of quartz.  

It was in that singular glance that Aredhel felt in her heart the name of her son: Lómion, _Child of Twilight,_ for he held within him all of the arcane beauty of the earth that the Eldar had known and loved ere the rising of the sun. A harsh seeming like the aloof hoarfrost but a delicate evensecence too fair not to love, not to protect.

But his Father was near, and he also looked down upon his son and felt an immediate love which overcame him. The more reason Aredhel did not pronounce him so, as the Child of Twilight, for _Lómion_ was a name in that offending tongue of the Noldor, and such things the Dark Elf had forbidden- especially to the one that he held so dear.

 

II.

He is still young when Aredhel finds something to call him while his Father listens.

The spring had come now, and Aredhel watched him play among the budding wildflowers of Nan Elmoth. Under the looming watch of the trees Arien’s eyes could not illumine the earth and the small white plumules were nourished instead with a luminescent haze of mist, near to the iridescence of opal and the soft lustre of pearl. Clusters of wood sorrel spotted the deep emerald of the clover it was couched in, anemone stood tall in the enfolding shadows like lucent stars, and the fireflies twinkled perpetually among the blossoms of bluebell and purple orchid.

Lómion paused, enchanted by the swirling glow of earth-fallen galaxies and the tiny flares of pale yellow. He seemed to wobble his way to the edge of the mossy path where the grasses encroached upon the weathered stones, as if entranced by something in the thicket. For a moment Aredhel watched him sternly. He was still too young to stray, but just old enough to begin to desire it. Yet instead of running off, Lómion, with a chubby hand, he points down near to a pile of decaying leaves and calls for her, upset.

When Aredhel bends down next to him she finds that there is a large mole there, such as the kind often found near to the foundations of their forest home. It turned its head from side to side and sniffed the air in confusion: on its fur was a spot of matted velvet soaked dark with crimson. Assaulted, but otherwise left alive by some predator that had likely run off at their approach, the creature seemed docile, and sat calmly in her hands. Yet Lómion seemed to think that it was already dead and he had sat down to cry mournfully over the creature, sobbing in the way that sent large, but only a few glossy tears down his flushed cheeks.

Aredhel smiled gently and cupped the small thing in her pale hands, and knelt down to show him that the mole’s pink nose moved to smell the air and that it shifted in her grasp when she moved. His tears suddenly forgotten, the toddler slowly pet its unharmed side and took it into his own small hands and they turned back to take it home for healing, and Lómion insisted on holding it near to his breast.

And so, Aredhel could not help but take to calling him her little _Nolpa,_ for oft she thought back so her son’s compassion with a smile.

 

III.

Eöl is away to visit the Dwarves when Lómion asks her of Gondolin.

At the mention of that distant city which he must have heard her murmur of wistfully in her dreams, or perhaps discerned her home-sickness with his keen eyes, Aredhel can feel the golden warmth of the midday sun upon her skin despite Nan Elmoth’s eternal gloomy shade. Faintly she can see her brother in the King’s Square, with sweet roses climbing the trellis in the soft-hued pinks and yellows of the summertime, that which arched above the daïs in a floral nimbus. At his left is Idril draped in honeysuckle, and the sound of her laughter rung bright and clear through the city streets like the song of the robin in the morning. She was there with them, but for a moment, and in her heart awakened the longing for _home:_ not as a place, but as a people.

“Lómion,” she calls to him, for Eöl was not home to shun her speech. And the image of her son it seemed to her the antithesis of the fading image of her niece.

“Lómion, I will tell you of the gold-rayed sun as it gleams off the marble walls in the summer, the clamour of the people of the Golodhrim, the song of birds that only there can be found. How the water of the Amon Gwareth is always clear and cool and falls from many fountains, how Glingal and Belthil stay aurum and argent even in the deepest of winters, and how the pinnacle of the Tower of the King soars above all.”

And within them both woke a yearning for the laughter of Idril and the wisdom of King Turgon, and the company of that fair people. And within them both woke a yearning for the Hidden City that hidden they kept.

 

IV.

At twelve years, Lómion is given two gifts from his Father.

The first he finds in his Father’s smithy, and Aredhel beams with joy as her son runs into the room to closer inspect his gift: it was not often that Lómion smiled so, being a sullen, quiet child. She laughed as he ran about the room to and fro, overwhelmed by which tool he should inspect first, and his sweet expression of charming seriousness with the slight furrow of his brow. For there now was two sets of hammers and two sets of chisels: and there were two fullers and tongs, punchers and drifts, and swages and set hammers, and two sets of anything and everything a smith could need. Her little Nolpa loved to labour long into the night by the forge-fire with his Father, inhaling every bit of information he could glean and discerning the rest with those piercing eyes.

To see him so overjoyed, Aredhel leaned up to kiss Eöl gently on his cheekbones’ high crest, and his stern composure faltered for a moment, and his lips curved upwards slightly at the corners in a small smile. It was long before they could calm the elfling down long enough to sit him on his Father’s knee, and with a commanding voice, Eöl at last to give him his second and long-awaited gift.

He christened him Maeglin, that is, _Sharp Glance._ For the eyes of his son he felt, contained within them a deep understanding, that which could unravel the desire of hearts through the mist of false words.

 

V.

Maeglin is twenty when he travels east to the mansions of the Gonnhirrim with his Father. Though suspicious of all the Eldar, Eöl had so great a friendship with them that they received Maeglin as they would a son of their own, which only deepened in kinship when he revealed his talents in the forge. For Maeglin had become skilled now indeed in the making of many things, though his heart was not so much set upon warcraft: of the sharpening of steel and the honing of iron. Rather, ever was his mind bent upon queer invention and the finding of strange ores.

Dwarvish clocks and music boxes he took apart and reassembled; he made his own toys that moved as if real with the tiniest of gears: mechanical models of the albino deer seen leaping in the forest outside his home. Magnets he played with, fascinated with their properties, and oft he would plead his Father for new and rare ores to test this strange attraction against lodestone and magnetite. He made small Galvanic Cells, friction machines, and Leyden Jars and scribbled pages of observations in his journals, to the delight of all the Gonnhirrim who recognized his special talent and fathomless ingenuity.

Eöl was interested not in the mystical nature of these inventions, how they worked and why. Even so, a great pride took shape within him for his son, and they left Nan Elmoth often to travel to the Gonnhirrim in the east wherein his fascination with artificial lightning and the harnessing of its power could be fostered and which only the most secretive of the Gonnhirrim studied.

But with each journey, Eöl’s pride soon became embittered, and so it was he found he could not keep up with his son’s studies and his enthusiasm turned into a feeling of despair. His son had no need of him. Great kinship he had instead with the Gonnhirrim- greater now than Eöl. Inadequacy and the jealousy of the closeness Maeglin had to the Dwarf elders grew that seedling of anger within him until one day, when Maeglin proudly showed him a voltaic pile, Eöl could not keep it within.

His Father loved him: Maeglin knew that. But Eöl’s rage seemed to him to have no cause, nor was he entirely conscious of its depth. Soon he learned to keep his inventions secret until they stopped being made altogether. Instead he perfected the craft of weaponry and the mastery of galvorn as was his Father’s wish.

Despite the joy of his Father at these creations, Maeglin only felt more discontent.

 

VI.

The sounds of his parent’s quarrels were not new to him, but in hearing the muffled argument through the oak-paneled walls he still could not help but to hide himself quietly behind the silk curtain of the window-seat. He sobbed softly there, holding his legs to his chest and hearing that it was about him again. He stared off into the cluster of dark trees that crowded close to the house until at last the fighting stopped and no more tears would come. He hadn’t meant to make them fight again, nor did he understand why Adar became so angry at the mention of Gondolin’s white walls.

Slipping from his spot, Maeglin opened the door from his Father’s modest library and down the hall to the room he knew he’d find his Mother in. He knew he wouldn’t be able to use the forge tonight, as Eöl would be too angry and the sight of him pounding on the metal, hammering it into shape so violently and so quickly only made him shiver, and the glint in his eyes scared him, though he knew not what that terrible sharpness was that flared in his glare.

Aredhel sat in the dark, looking out the window much like he had during their fight, and the ethereal light of the mists and rains outside made her pale skin glow gently like the moon from behind clouds. He wondered what enchantment had made her leave Gondolin, and why she had stayed here all the long years. The softness in his Mother’s eyes he could read well: discontent which she tried to smother, a certain lingering sadness, and a longing as deep as the well on the hillock. Maeglin was silent for a long moment, as was his wont. Keen were his eyes, and it seemed to him that he found those feelings also within himself afore Aredhel turned around and composed herself.

“You told him you wished to leave again, Emel, didn’t you?”

Aredhel sighed and sat down at the edge of the bed, opening her arms so that he may nestle himself against her, leaning against her slight but strong frame. She tucked the strands of his smooth midnight hair behind the point of one ear and let her arm drape around his shoulders. They sat like this for some time, until the rain picked up and the music of the droplets could be heard on the side of the house and the glass set into the window.

_“I want to leave too.”_

He said it so quietly that it scarce could be heard in the room above the sound of the rain. But it was not in his head, as he nearly tricked himself into thinking, and Aredhel looked down upon him- unsurprised, but concerned. Maeglin read her easily, and felt all the more heartbroken for it; moving from thought to thought until his Mother at last settled for an unconvincing sternness.

“You mustn’t tell your Father.”

Maeglin nodded, but something in him wanted nothing more than to tell. Perhaps then his Father would understand and they could visit his Mother’s people like they so often visited the Gonnhirrim. Perhaps then Father wouldn’t be so angry and Mother so sad.

 

VII.

“I wish to see Gondolin.”

It was a simple phrase, harmless and innocent by the way of a child. A natural curiosity to want to know all of his lineage, about his family that still lived and was accessible to him. And what young boy had not dreamed of being a Prince, beloved by the fairest of people, valiant and proud? Yet the change in Eöl’s demeanor was instant and such a desire was taken as an affront to his authority.

“Do not speak of such things.” His voice was heavy and harsh, and his eyes shone dark and angry like the metallic glint of glavorn.

Maeglin did not cower. Many fights his Mother had over the years about her captivity in Nan Elmoth, and every fight would go the same: Maeglin would lay hid under the bed or within his armoire and listen to their arguments: how the Noldor were the cause of Morgoth’s return and how his Father would not have him associate with kinslayers and land-stealers. How his Mother grew lonely and how her Fëa sickened with each day Maeglin and Eöl traveled from her and left her under the twilight of the forest. How she wanted nothing more than to see the sun and feel its rays grace her face. How she missed Idril, who was as a daughter to her.

 _“Am I not one of them, the Noldor whom you curse?”_ she’d say. And Eöl would be silenced and drift off to his forge and lock himself away long into the night. And so, Maeglin found the courage to voice his own wishes.

“But Adar-” Maeglin began again, and again was cut off by Eöl’s temper, which burst like white flame and sent his fist against the table, made him turn to glare down at his son with that terrible impression which Maeglin was beginning to understand. He turned and grabbed him by the shoulders until Maeglin was forced to look deep into his dark eyes, which, from the swirl of rage could be seen some Fëa-sickness.

“You are of the House of Eöl, Maeglin, my son, and not of the Golodhrim. All this land is the land of the Teleri, and I will not deal nor have my son deal with the slayers of our kin, the invaders and usurpers of our homes. In this you shall obey me, or I will set you in bonds.”

And Maeglin could see from his Father’s wild eyes that he would go to great lengths to keep them where they were; among the shadows.

 

VIII.

The fights continued until finally, Maeglin could not stand to feel the loneliness of his Mother’s sickening Fëa, could not stand to see her wither like some parched flower for freedom. No longer did he find joy in the making of things, for he could not make what he truly wished without inspiring his Father’s anger. And so, despite his love and kinship with the Dwarves, no longer did he travel with Eöl to their mansions.

He became mute; a shade of his former self to hear their quarrels and find them about him, about his difference in mood, about merely leaving the forest to see the daytime. His eyes seemed shrouded in shade, bruised from the lack of repose from his ever-turning worries- but their orbs still shone as cold and piercing as the winter dusk.

Eöl would leave and true to his word, would place him in bonds knowing that if Aredhel could not take him, she would not go. The manacles were of iron, and they forever left red lines along his wrists, though he seldom wore them, for even as his Father was just making it out of the canopy of Nan Elmoth, Maeglin would pick the lock and drift like a ghost throughout the house to search for his Mother.

Atimes, when Eöl was gone, Maeglin- no! Lómion he was called- could shut his eyes and listen to the sounds of his Mother’s stories among Gondolin, or of her hunts with Celegorm and Curufin, or the trouble she used to get into as a girl with Turgon.

But most of all, Lómion would hear of Idril Celebrindal, for Aredhel would recall her fondly and often as a daughter missed, and he would wonder what it would be like to have a friend of his own kind: for there were none in Nan Elmoth but his parents and their grim servants and he could go to the Dwarves no longer. Sometimes he would dare to pretend to meet her, and what it would be like to confide in her, and if she would like his inventions, and if she could teach him to play the harp.

But always he would open his eyes to the sound of his Father’s returning, and would slip away into the corridor and lock himself back into his bonds.

 

IX.

In midsummer of the year four-hundred, the Gonnhirrim had their annual feast in Nogrod, and both Maeglin and Aredhel know Eöl would be gone long, long enough that Maeglin could walk free and they could have their own modest feast outside of the wood where they could see the sun rise and gaze upon the plains of vibrant green spotted with brilliant scarlet and merigold.

There, at the edge of the forest Maeglin looked out across the fields and the vast lands of Beleriand and a sudden feeling came upon him- an instinct- to run down the slope and never look back. Tears burned his eyes and he turned to his Mother, who already had begun to set down the basket. The sun had arisen from the east and its rays bent down upon the earth and glimmered within the folds of his Mother’s white dress and he wondered if Gondolin’s walls glittered just as the chiffon. And the warmth returned to him and washed from him the gloom that had settled within his heart.

For the first time in years he spoke, and it seemed that he recalled those secret thoughts which came to him in his deepest moments of despair, that he should break free of his Father and leave, to be brave and noble like a Prince of the Noldor.

“Emel,” he said, and Aredhel looked at him in surprise and tears came to her eyes in joy. “Let us depart while there is still time! What hope is there in this wood for you or for me? Here we are held in bondage and the long years have passed slow as our hearts have dreamed of elsewhere. Shall we not seek for Gondolin? You shall be my guide, and I will be your guard!”

Aredhel overflowed with pride, and could see how lordly her son had become with his hope renewed and with the sun behind him so that little beams of light made him look like the light of the Valar had graced him. No longer was there a sickness clinging to him, no longer was he faded, but strong and wise- too wise for his age, and too weary.

Yet, as if by some curse, some many leagues away Eöl felt a sudden foreboding come upon his heart and decided to leave the merriment of the Gonnhirrim sooner- for long he had known that the bonds did not keep his son, and long he suspected some secret cunning between them.

 

X.

Over the north and across the Celon into the green Himlad upon to the Fords of Aros they rode free, with the water urging them along with excited ripples in the sunlight, seeming like a living mirror of finest glass. And west along the very border of Doriath they rode, carefully and silent until at last they reached the Brithiach.

The White Lady of the Noldor was what Aredhel was called in early days, and Lómion could see the truth of it from the way she shone in the sun as they rode swiftly across the lands- she was like a star fallen to the earth and never had he seen her so happy. He cursed that terrible power of enchantment that had kept her from dancing under the sun and racing in the fragrant planes.

Yet just before they entered the secret way, Aredhel stopped him before the gates, turning to him and hugging him closely to her chest, for still he was only a child, and still he was her _Nolpa._ She said to him all the things that had been stifled under the trees in Nan Elmoth; her pride and her love, for she would have stayed forever under the shade if it meant never parting from her son.

That was how the guards found them; the long-lost sister of their King, holding a grim and teary-eyed elfling, and whispering over and over again how brave he was and how sorry she was that he should ever come to believe it was his fault.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this has been sitting in my folder for literally more than a year and it has driven me to madness! I am not entirely happy with it, but I am tired of seeing it sit there, mocking me D:   
> It is also WAY to long. I apologize but I couldn't bring myself to cut it down. So I decided to just post it. If you get through this entire thing I will give you a thousand hugs and kisses! :*  
> That being said, Maeglin is perhaps my favorite character aside from my two dumb boys, Melkor and Mairon. He's just so. . . unexplored and kind-of written off I feel, especially considering how the fandom is with the sons of Feanor. I just feel like there could be a lot of bias in his story. And when you take into account his childhood and isolation and his really young age. . . :'(  
> Note: Most of the dialogue in this work is taken directly from the Silmarillion. I wanted to incorporate it so it seems like the Silmarillion was accurate, but only from a certain perspective.   
> ***


	2. The Outsider

I.

The guard brought them with haste through the Six Gates of Gondolin and at their craft Lómion would have lingered for hours, studying each door and the mechanisms by which made them move; but his Mother clasped his hand and with a smile told him that he would have lifetimes to sit by them and think upon their contrivance- indeed, that he could speak to those who made them and he could make one of his own. And Lómion was staggered by her words and the realization that _this was not a dream,_ that they were there at last in that beloved city which had been a haven from the oppressive twilight of Nan Elmoth.

And even as he beheld the beauty of the white walls which were so often described to him he was rendered again mute, but in a speechless way which grew to such a smile as Aredhel had never before seen on her son’s face. She held him close even as they ascended the stairs and passed the Main Gate and were met with the delighted astonishment of all the Golodhrim who knew and loved Aredhel before she was lost, and they wondered also at the elfling she held dear to her and his eyes which graced the sunlit kingdom with the beauty of the moonlight there captured.

At last they arrived at the King’s Square, and Turgon, King of Gondolin, could not restrain the sudden exaltation that came upon seeing his sister at last returned within embrace of the Amon Gwareth, and Idril gave such an overjoyous cry that the people who could not see thought that perhaps there was news of the Dark Lord’s defeat. Idril, whose hair is of the sun’s rays and who is more beautiful than all the sights in Gondolin, ran at last down the steps of her Father’s daïs and into the arms of Aredhel.

Then all the people of that fair city gathered in the King’s Square and lined the balconies and even sat upon the tiled roofs of the markets and listened to all that Aredhel had to tell of her journey outside of the gates, though queerly she spoke in Sindarin. But despite this oddity, even as she finished Turgon and Gondolin’s people looked down kindly upon Lómion and found him worthy, and for the first time Lómion was embraced by Idril Celebrindal, she whom he had so often heard of yet in which words could never capture. Forever he would remember the way in which his heart throbbed in that welcome, for to him she was no stranger, but a friend come from the tales of his mother, one whom he had imagined present in Nan Elmoth’s shaded woods where there were no children- or as a confidant when the fighting became to much.

“I rejoice indeed that Ar-Feiniel has returned to Gondolin,” Turgon replied, “And now more fair again shall my city seem than in the days when I deemed her lost. And Lómion shall have the highest honour in my realm.”

Love for the fair walls and the sunlight which glittered there and filtered down upon the crowds and the trellis of soft pink and yellow roses, and the light and warmth which seemed to still linger on him from Idril’s embrace, and the words which Turgon spoke of acceptance of him, he who felt so dark and cold amongst the people of radiant Laurelin- all moved him to fall upon his knees afore Turgon.

“I take you, Lord Turgon, as my King and rejoice that I have also found my way to Gondolin, which seems to me like home.”

Home indeed he was- or so he felt.

 

II.

Yet even as the people were still gladly receiving Aredhel and Lómion and singing happily as those returned unlooked for from the Halls of Mandos, Eöl was found sneaking past the Dry River on their trail and brought before the King. Lómion could see that his Mother was troubled at the sight of her husband, and that some shadow fell upon the people, but Lómion felt not in his own heart but a hope. For years he had convinced himself that it was but the shadow of the trees of Nan Elmoth or some sickness therein that had caused his parents to quarrel so often and so heated, and that now, among the fresh breeze full with the scent of the last flowers before winter and the glory of the midday sun, he thought perhaps Eöl would feel that same love of Gondolin within his bones and be healed of that metallic glint in his eyes.

Turgon resumed his spot upon the high seat at the daïs and the crowd set back to give their Lord space- and Lómion sat between his Mother and Idril, with whom he could scarce take his eyes from. But as he peered down instead upon his Father the shadow that was upon Aredhel fell also upon him, as sudden as if he were doused in ice-water. He was not named sharp glance for naught and saw an evil stir that soured his soaring hope.

It seemed to him that when his Father proclaimed to the hosts of Gondolin that his name was Maeglin in the tongue of the Sindar and that he could not be withheld he felt the same sickness that had once haunted him under the trees of Nan Elmoth and was again rendered mute. It felt to him that Eöl had spoken his doom and that the sun had been covered by black clouds.

And of the rest was a blur to Lómion. In after days he would recall the tone in his Father’s voice, but not his words, of the malice and fury which drove his speech and its _hate._ He would remember the fear that fell upon his Mother and the sudden silence of all who had gathered and before had been in joy. And he remembered that streak of silver which had crested towards him, and in waiting for what seemed like ages for the javelin to pierce him.

But most of all he remembered his Mother, white chiffon stained with red.

 

III.

Aredhel was brought again to her chambers which had been kept despite her seeming death and she held close her little Nolpa who looked on with heavy eyes. He was far away, as if he were daydreaming, his eyes unfocused and glossy. Yet he would not stray from his Mother’s side and would only be moved from his trance to resist when the healers attempted to remove him, or to tremble when Idril comforted him, or to follow Aredhel’s every breath.

Though hid under his sleeves, Lómion could still feel even many leagues away those iron manacles which his Father had bound him with. Despite those restraints never before had he feared his Father to strike him or Aredhel, and at once this new violence crippled him to shivers. A sudden guilt and shame was also borne deep inside of him, a seed which had been kept dormant by hope and which was ready to sprout.

_“You shall be my guide, and I will be your guard!”_

This line only echoed in his mind, and crimson stained his memory. He had been dumb when that javelin was thrown, frozen to his seat, unmoving. All of Gondolin had seen his ineptitude and now his Mother was paying for it. He was not worthy of that Noldorin valiance, for could he not even protect his own Mother?

All through the evening he would not be moved from her side, even as she sickened. He seemed as a statue of grief, holding onto his Mother’s hands through to the evening when her fever began and into the night when the heat left her and even as she seized with the falling of the sun. Until at last she lay cold and as unmoving as he.

 

IV.

He was present at Caragdûr in the morning before the first light had a chance to warm the streets. A silence came onto the city and Lómion had not moved from his spot aside his Mother until he had heard talk of the trial. There reluctantly he had wrenched himself at his hearts desire to look upon his Father one last time so that he may hear the words that he may speak- to see that he was despairing of Aredhel’s death as he, that he had somehow not known the javelin was poisoned and could not tell of it, or that at the least he would repent and think no ill of his son before his death.

But it was not so. There were no such things enwritten in his Father’s eyes, despite the great yearning in Lómion’s heart- just that same ire like hot coals, a cold apathy, and a fierce possessiveness. He did not speak- indeed, could not. As the guards drove his Father to the edge he could not even bear to look into his Father’s eyes.

_Ill-gotten son. Ill-gotten son. Here shall fail all your hopes. Here may you yet die the same death as I._

 

V.

As in her last hours Lómion did not leave the side of his Mother. A guard was set about him and despite the coaxing of many he lay near to her sarcophagus within the flower strewn floor of her sepulchre until the flowers withered and Turgon commanded he remove himself to his chamber to wash and eat and rest.

He washed and ate what little he could stomach, but to him the food tasted of poison and he found no rest. He wondered what had driven his Father so and what had made him throw the javelin. He tried to delude himself that the Dark Lord had infected his mind on the journey and that he had been possessed: why had he not told that the tip was poisoned? Why else would he say such things? _Ill-gotten son. Ill-gotten son._ It echoed forever within him.

Some compulsion from his youth stirred in his breast and he scratched at his wrists and hid under the bed of the chamber, under the wooden frame and amidst the darkness of the sheets that hung from it. He closed his eyes and strained his ears to see if he could hear the sounds of his parent’s fights so that he may come back out from beneath the bed and the hard floor and be back in Nan Elmoth where he would throw his arms about his Mother and promise his Father that he would never leave.

But when he strained his ears he could hear not the sound of his Mother, nor that of his Father. Instead there came drifting through the windows the sound of singing such that Lómion never heard, fairer than the music of the Ainur and softer and sweeter than a summer breeze or the gentle current of the waters of the Amon Gwareth.

It was the song of Idril, and in her he placed all his hope.

 

VI.

Through that dreary winter in which Gondolin mourned, Lómion would speak seldom, and then only for Turgon and most of all Idril, whom he had come to cherish like no other. It was she who began to teach him the language of his Mother which he had been forbidden from. In her tutoring of Quenya in which speech was necessary he would begin to tell her those things he had always imagined telling her within the shade of Nan Elmoth- of the inventions he used to make, questions of Gondolin’s history, of even his Mother. Even if she would teach him to play the harp.

Yet despite Lómion’s openness around her, nothing could stop the warning in Idril’s heart to distrust him, for she too could see deep into the hearts of men and had caught sight of that guilt, that secret shame and troubled nature within him. Was he not the son of Eöl the Murderous? Perhaps it was the resentment within her that shunned him, but she knew that the only thing that had kept Aredhel from returning to her home all those years had been this elfling who so subtly but regrettably resembled his Father.

In his complete adoration of Idril, Lómion who was _Sharp Glance_ in Sindarin, he did not see the beginnings of this bitter resentment, and it was Idril for whom his heart swelled with affection. In his mind he began to call her _Aure,_ his sunlight, for she brought warmth to him, dispelling the cold his Father’s glare had left him, and her music each morning made him crawl from his hiding-spot like some frail child and sleep as one of his station should upon the finest of beds.

Had she not lost a Mother too? Twice she had, Lómion thought. She would know and understand that terrible feeling in his heart, and he could share with her that pain and be healed.

 

VII.

So it was that Lómion slowly healed of his grief, though ever it lingered as a raw scar. He became great among those in Gondolin and established himself naturally among those great smiths and engineers of the city as one wise beyond his time.

Within those first few months wherein he was relinquished from his mutness and the worst of his grief, already he had designed wonderous things and had shared with those people in Gondolin some cunning inventions of the Gonnhirrim. Of his first craft was Glamdring, that sword which he bestowed to King Turgon and which seemed made of starlight, hardened into thin argent. And for himself he made Orcrist, for he hated to wield that blade of his Father and its dark galvorn.

He also became fascinated with the sun and thought often upon the rays which always glittered upon its walls and tinkered long until at last he had made something that could harness its rays, to absorb its warmth and generate power. What greater gift could he have made, Lómion thought, as a sign of his gratitude for the city of sunlight and her people?

His inventions, though wondrous and met with seeming enthusiasm only made him stranger, though he did not notice it for a long time. He was never cured of his Sindarin accent, nor could the people avoid seeing Eöl in his features, Turgon most of all. His love of the Dwarf-craft was most peculiar, almost taboo, and of his mechanical inclination and facianations with electric invention they seemed to the Golodhrim to resemble too closely the ways the Enemy.

But Lómion remained unaware and was encouraged by the more eccentric of the smiths and engineers in Gondolin, and by his Uncle who felt for a time that it was harmless, and that he owed it to his sister to allow whatever made him happy. Despite those oddities, Lómion made many other things besides- toys for the children of Gondolin, masterful swords with mighty names, and many jewels which he would shyly bestow upon Idril.

For a while, Gondolin became home, and he thought no more of Nan Elmoth, save in his deepest nightmares which would dissipate each morning with the sound of Idril’s song interwoven with that of the birds.

 

VIII.

His passions would draw him to the North wherein he established the Mines of Anghabar in the Echoriath. There he found the most precious of jewels and veins of metals and coal which he knew could heat many homes in the dead of winter. Though he liked not to be so distant from Idril and her morning song or his lessons in Quenya or stringed instruments, nor apart from her laugh, everytime he happened upon a gem of pale amber or delicate cherry-pink or deep blues he would beam and the shape of a new gift would appear in his mind.

It was in one of these excursions to the north that he found a lone bird among the rocks, and the memory of near eighty years ago came back to him: of the path in Nan Elmoth and little injured mole which he and his Mother had cared for. So it was that he took this bird into his utmost care, and pet its glossy jet feathers and placed a splint about its wing and healed it with songs of power.

It healed quickly under his care, and its eyes gleamed with an intelligence too sharp for a wild bird. Lómion delighted in its company deep within the mines or whilst he smithed those jewels for Idril and tinkered, and the raven adored to keep watch over the silver and shiny things around its makeshift nest. And when the splint was removed Lómion was both saddened and delighted to see the strength of its flight as it parted from him to the north-east over the far mountains in some sudden haste.

It would not be the last time he saw the creature.

 

IX.

After a while he returned from the Mines of Anghabar and back to that fair city, and he showed Idril again the gems he had found with a slight blush, set now into the finest of adornments. It was then that he realized that he could no longer bear to keep his love of her a secret, for when he laid eyes upon her his heart was filled with an unspeakable joy and he felt like he could burst into song. She was to him the heart and light of that fair city, and the sun was but a compliment- it was her radiance that made the walls glitter and the flowers bloom so sweetly. And it was her voice each morning which dispelled the despair he had felt and made him feel like he was home.

He coveted their friendship like no other, unaware of her secret resentment and mistrust. In the nighttime he would ponder if would be a mistake to tell her, for fear of ruining their closeness. No thoughts he had considering that they were kin, as Lómion had no notion of the gravity of such things and their customs, and thought not in a naiveté that this affection was strange, for his isolated youth taught him no such things and his newness to the culture of the Noldor left him blissfully unaware. His doubts were cured in the morning, anyhow, when her song outside his window in the gardens would give him hope and he would sing with her, secretly, a whisper of faith.

So it was that in the Autumn, a little more than a year past his first coming to Gondolin, Lómion walked with Idril through the gardens which had turned the most lovely of colours. His eyes always turned to her and a confidence sprung in his breast, and a sudden yearning to tell her, despite his typical reserved manner, all the things which he had felt in his heart.

They sat down on a secluded bench and he fumbled with his hands as the words spilled from his lips, first in Quenya then changing unconsciously into his native Sindarin. He told her of how she was the first person aside from Aredhel who had ever embraced him, told her of how he called her Aure in secret- for she was as to him the sunlight that warmed and alighted his grief. He told her of how her kindness inspired him, how he could listen to her speak forever of her love of music, or how he loved to learn every subtlety of Quenya from her. He told her of how she was more fair than anything on Arda, how her eyes were more lovely than Arien’s, how she contained within her the beauty of the last fruit of Laurelin. . .

And as he spoke the words seemed to alleviate his nervousness and when he finished he felt a weight had been lifted and he was free to burst into song like he had long desired, to dance lightly among the last blooms before winter and soar like that raven which he had healed and freed. Yet when finally Lómion worked up the courage within him to look deep into those amber eyes to see if his words had moved her like they had him, he found it was not so.

All colour, wherefore the passion and his love spoken into words had made him blush a deep and healthy peach, now drained from him as a pale winter, and he averted his gaze in numb panic: for within those honey eyes, which so often came into his thoughts and which he had always sought to compliment with precious stones, there came a shadow, a flicker which had not been hidden quickly enough and which had destroyed within him in one glance any hope.

She was utterly _repulsed._

Idril had loved him not and his words had only reduced what amity she had. Such feelings she thought only a product of that that grief, that _crookedness_ within him, and not the innocence of one who had for the formative years of his life no contact with others of his kind and which he had, based on the stories told by his Mother, longed to see her for years. Idril did not see it in such a way, for she had only been weary of his fixation upon her, and his slight mania at gifting her things. What else but some form of corruption would cause him to desire kin so near? What else would cause him to haunt her steps so? She deemed it in her heart that this was some fruit of evil come to wreak vengeance upon the Noldor for the Kinslaying: he was doomed by Mandos, she was sure.

As before it seemed like Lómion had reverted back to that time when the javelin was thrown or when his parents would fight into the early hours, and he grew deaf and pulled back within himself, and stared only down at his hands which trembled. He did not hear her firm rejection and when he looked up it seemed like she had been gone a long while, for the falling leaves had collected on her seat.

And in the morning Idril did not sing in the gardens and Lómion lay hid under his bed like he did when he was younger in Nan Elmoth, and came to realize that he had confided in no other during his stay: that he could not seek comfort from Turgon, who would surely have a similar disgust, nor could he any longer seek the embrace of his Mother who perhaps would not have become revolted by her son, who perhaps would have been the only one who understood.

 

X.

Yet Turgon was wise and so were his people, and soon they perceived that Idril had spurned Lómion and that he could not endure to look upon her when at court, nor even speak at length to her or bestow upon her those many jewels. Nor did Idril lie to her Father when he asked at last what had happened between them.

A coldness came through Turgon, and he retired to his chambers to think upon all that Idril had told him, for he had much love for his sister-son who was noble and wise, but still he felt that cold unquenchable anger of a Father deeming a suiter unworthy, and worse for their close kinship. And he also felt a doom upon him that something ill should come of it, seeming to him that Lómion had now become more Eöl-like, perilous, aloof, and crooked.

When he looked at Lómion again, sitting alone under the shade one day sketching gently upon a parchment, Turgon was only more conflicted and filled with pity, for he looked to him at first glance like a full Noldor, and yet on longer scrutiny that severe slant of his nose and the heavy-lids over piercing eyes would become more obvious and Lómion would instead seem like Maeglin, his Father’s son: of Eöl which he so bitterly hated.

He wondered not once if it would have done him better to keep Aredhel from ever leaving the fair walls.

 

XI.

He watched the eagles take Húrin and Huor over the mountains and towards Dor-Lómin in the West where the sun had just set. Suddenly a shiver shook him and he wondered if such a shiver had ran through his Mother to see the birds fly away from the mountains and off into wilds wherein they were free of their gilded cage.

Was it jealousy he felt for Húrin and Huor? Nay! But they had been given leave when Adar had been denied and did that not lead to Emel’s death? Why should Turgon slacken his laws for two mortals? A shadow fell upon his heart. Gondolin had fawned over them, and Turgon especially had taken liking to the two. Was it love which he had let them leave, just as he had let Aredhel all those years ago?

He hated to look upon himself. He hated that still he was weak like when he was little, unbefitting of his Princedom. He hated that he felt smothered, that still he hid when it rained and he could faintly hear his parent’s quarrels, how those thoughts come to him unbidden and his heart would race and breath heave.

How often was he asked to tell stories of his time outside the bars of this cage? Yet they had delighted in the tales of those men! How often did he hear their murmurs only for those gossipers to smile saccharine when he turned to them? He knew what they said, what they thought of him. Those lines he had where his Father once bound him, they itched and he wanted to dig his nails in there to be rid of that sickly crawling. As if peeling from him that enchantment of Nan Elmoth.

Turgon knew. The people had guessed. They watched him wearily, they looked at him with pity and disgust and avoidance and he hated it. Hated himself for not saving his Mother and for telling Idril. Hated his Father. Hated that his Mother had ever left and that the King had let her and was now letting these men.

_(Was he was just like his Father? Was he tainted by some evil? What was wrong with him? Why did he still love Idril so? Why did his love make him feel such a lightness in his heart, such a swelling joy to be crushed by that potent memory of her rejection? Was it those last words Adar had spoken? Was he poisoned too? Some said that he was illegitimate, that his parent’s marriage was not real because there was not a family ceremony. Was it that? Why did he not sicken and die if he was truely ill-gotten?)._

And he endured in silence.

 

XII.

He lay in his own private chambers, and only his craft kept him from thinking back onto the Nirnaeth. In his hands he smoothed and polished a bit of amber he had found on the march, and he was careful not to file too closely to the creature found therein, one in which no longer wandered the earth, some strange moth-like creature, small but shimmering lightly in many diaphanous colours caught within and long-preserved.

The work kept him from thinking but soon became monotonous and his mind slipped to the sounds of the wounded in battle, to the crunch of bone and the unsheathing of many swords. He blinked those images of the dead Gonnhirrim and Elves and Men and the sounds of clashing metal and roaring fire and the smells of blood and smoke away and focused on polishing the surface with the small rag.

Had he done it? Had he proved to them that he was legitimate, worthy of Noldorin heritage and kingship? Had he proven to Idril his devotion to the fair city? Had he made up for his ineptitude when that javelin was thrown? Had he proven that he was not just a snake creeping over Turgon’s shoulder and waiting for his moment to seize power, having fought and not stayed behind as a cowardly regent?

The room was quiet but it began to rain and the dusk drew the shadows farther across the walls. He looked down at the moth in amber, and thought that it was far from home and seemed to belong instead under the forest of Nan Elmoth, for he had seen a similar creature flutter there often. He wondered if Idril would like it, then washed away that thought as quickly as it came.

 

XIII.

He occupied himself with his work and devised the seventh gate like he had longed to when first he passed through them all those years ago. Seeing war had made him desire instead defense, feeling it futile and filled only with death and despair. His mind was bent now on fortification and the making of another gate seemed good to him.

It was to be the last defense against the outside and Tumladen, and it was made of steel which could not be destroyed lightly. He made it seven stories and set upon it Turgon’s King-Helm set with diamonds, diamonds which reminded him of the clear waters of the Fords of Aros where he had escaped with his Mother and had sat with her, watching the white foam skirt its ripples.

And the gate seemed impassable save when struck at just the right place, and all the steel hummed and resonated like the strings of the harp Idril had only just begun to teach him to play long ago, and the bars which seemed at first severe like a prison sung now with a music in clear notes from tower to tower, and it was similar to that song which Aredhel used to sing to him, that song that Idril would atimes sing each morning and which he would wake to, the gardens being just outside his window.

 

XIV.

As the years slipped by he looked up less and less from his work and seemed forever stooped over one of his creations. He left more and more for the mines and stayed there longer to be free from the court of Turgon. His company was kept with those ravens and the creatures in the earth, especially those moles and rodents which did not dart from him. Sometimes he spoke to them, finding them more to his liking.

He hated looking upon himself in the mirror, finding now only Eöl there, and the glint which once he had shunned. Now he knew what it was that had wormed its way into his Father’s soul: despair, all consuming despair. He wanted to cut it from himself.

Tuor arrived and Lómion saw that the man distrusted him, his eyes ever looking upon him queerly and in suspicion. It was well known now his twisted nature _(his love for Idril),_ though never spoken but in whispers. He also did not hide his distaste of the man, nor of the council he had given to Tugon to defend the city. Ever did he remember the Nirnaeth, and ever did he strive to avoid such bloodshed which kept him up many long nights with the sounds of battle.

He was not named Sharp Glance for naught, and he could see the love between that mortal and Idril and it festered in his heart. Around him she grew more radiant, more happy, more beautiful, and he knew that never had she been such around him, not even in those days of ignorant bliss wherein he thought that they were friends.

Though he already knew it deep within his Fëa, Tuor made it obvious. Idril did not love him, and never had. All he had were scraps of pity and that cold memory of revulsion, and a torment: for the love in her eyes which made her more beautiful than ever he imagined, it was not for him.

 

XV.

The sounds of the feast did not reach him at the bottom. He lay upon his back and looked up at the stars as the tears streamed down his face and fell in his hair which spread across the rock like dark shadow. The small stars were a comfort to him, and he counted them to calm him from his disabling panic.

It felt like his heart was being squeezed and the blood forced from him, like he was bleeding out the eyes all of his soul. His hands shook to wipe them away but they did not come back red, nor did his cold sweat run his skin in crimson. But still he counted- _one, two, three, four-_ each star that twinkled at him and made his heart slow and his breath deepen.

The intense fear faded from him and a numbness overcame him and he fancied instead that he was dead and that this was what it was like for the Fëa to leave. The shadow of the wall blocked out the setting sun and cast over him, and the deep blue of the late-evening sky seemed to mock him. Silence. He didn’t dare to move, couldn’t yet break the illusion that he had jumped and was dead, that he would go to Mandos and find his Mother and be healed and cease to haunt Gondolin like a wraith.

But the white in the corner of his eye seemed to pull him, and he turned his head and trembled. He was not dead yet. He was too scared to jump despite those many nights he would cling to the balusters and look down and drown in that urge to lean forward and let Arda pull him. . . Sometimes he could hear his Adar laugh and tell him that it was not the day his will would be fulfilled.

He had not realized it but for a moment he had reached out to touch the bones and the fine cloth which had turned now to grimy rags. He stopped before he did and at that moment decided to leave for Anghabar.

 

XVI.

He does not return to Gondolin for years and hears only the news of a child after he steeled himself with layers of indifference. He mined deeper and deeper and seemed to make less and less. He seemed to be unable to stop himself from digging, as if he was carving his own sepulcher. The ravens pecked at the walls and he dug where their beaks tapped and found pretty things, jewels and iron ore and veins of gold and impressions of large ferns and the shape of beasts.

It was winter when he broke through, when, in some thinned part of the mountains he had dug far enough to come out on the other side of the Echoriath into the wilds beyond. He felt at once a relief overcome him, and he dropped his pickaxe and sprang at once across the rocky hillocks and the snow-crested planes and laughed like a man freed from bondage. The ravens circled him and their hoarse voices echoed and they bounced along the rocks with him.

He finds a spot near to the tunnel he delved wherein the trees grew thick and he wove enchantments there with his music and with little crystals he hung from their branches, such that none should find their way through to Gondolin. For years he stayed there, going back to Gondolin only to keep up appearances in court and to appease Turgon’s will but his heart lay within that small valley and the peace he found there with the animals.

Sometimes he would laugh to himself until he shook with sorrow, thinking of his little haven and that it should resemble Nan Elmoth, and he only hated himself the more, thinking of his Father and those white bones at the foot of the Crissaegrim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really hope I didn't make Idril seem too. . . mean or unreasonable. Make no mistake: she is entirely in the right to reject Maeglin (even if he wasn't her cousin) just simply because she doesn't like him. To be honest I think Maeglin was likely a little too attached to her as well. I just feel it is a bit ridiculous to think that his affection was a "shadow of the curse of Mandos." Like, chill. The kid has some (a lot of) problems but damn, that's harsh.  
> I believe that Maeglin technically isn't considered "adult" yet if the elves come-of-age at a century, so I think that adds a bit of. . . sympathy? to his situation, 'cause he's about eighty-something I think when he comes to Gondolin, maybe like a late teens comparison to humans. I don't know the whole situation is crappy :(  
> ***


	3. The Traitor

I.

One day he is betrayed, staying too far from the mountain-pass and being found but by the cries of the ravens as they replied to his idle talk. He fights but there are too many and he only had his bow and a hunting knife, and they kick him in the snow until he can recall no more.

When he awakens he is in a cell, cold and dank and chained to the floor. Stripped of his clothes and weapons, he was bare to the biting chill and the grime which spoke of many prisoners before him. He fiddled with the locks but he had nothing to pick it with, and the runes etched onto the manacles were too strong to be convinced to unlock by his shaky song.

The orcs came, he knew not when- day, night, evening, morning- they fed him seldom and only in scraps which he refused, being of unknown meat and thinned broth. Sometimes they forced his head under water, convinced that he needed help drinking, pinning him down and leering at him as he coughed it up only to force him under again.

Time wore on and Maiar came, masked and silent, and they whipped him, prodding his mind to find faults and searching through his thoughts. After so many lashes they knew he was from Gondolin.

Those Maiar left and another came, and he was cruel and fell and yet still masked and with his eyes covered, and Lómion wondered what terrible visage of malice was hidden there. He glowed faintly like the sun, golden and warm, and sometimes he thought he smelled the scents of forge-work under the perfumes of cinnamon. His touch was a mockery, gentle and yet probing, and of all the others, he was the most adept at searching his mind.

In his delerium sometimes he would feel that Maia’s warmth and that golden light, and he would blearily think of Idril, and the panic and terror within him came only later- _that the Maia now knew of Idril-_ was enough to make him vomit at his weakness, in his fear.

One day the Maia sat him up and took off the mask, and all else became dark except those eyes he saw, worse then his Father’s, worse than his own they razed him, tore him apart piece by piece and shifted through his thoughts. But still he would not tell those eyes, red and evil, the way by which he left that fair city.

The Maia left for days it seemed, and he was pitiful, tugging at the chains and breaking his nails upon the walls. He fell into the corner and wondered if he could forfeit his life lest he reveal Gondolin when at last he fell into deep slumber.

He awoke to the sound of singing, and it was Idril’s song that so often he heard in the gardens outside his room and he did not open his eyes, thinking that he now was hallucinating. But how could he resist for long? She was there, in that cell he was confined in, brilliant and beautiful in the gloom and the filth and at once he desired to curl near to her and feel her warmth and light and be embraced by her like that first day he came to Gondolin.

Idril knelt next to him, and caressed him, and brought his broken Hröa up to lay his head upon her lap and stroke his matted hair. He shuddered to feel that embrace, the kindness of her touch and the humming of her voice. She was the sun, she was _life and love_ and Lómion sobbed to be so delivered from his torment. _‘So what if it is fake,’_ he thought, _‘let me at least have this afore I forfeit.’_

He clutched onto her skirts and cried and she held him, and rocked him, and her hair fell like streams of light around him and her eyes like honey. But at once she changed before him, and morphed, her features shifting, more evil, and about the honey of her eyes wheeled a ring of fire and her pupils thinned to slits and Lómion quailed as Idril turned now to that Maia he feared most, grabbing him as at last he claimed mastery over his mind.

His smile was cruel, though he could not tear himself from those eyes, and when he asked for Gondolin the last thread of his will remained, guarding its location. But the Maia laughed and Lómion perceived that Idril should be his, that he should be King in Turgon’s stead if only he told all- that Morgoth could remove his Father’s curse. And the Maia turned back, for only a blink, to that fair vision of Idril that had comforted him, and at last he was broke.

The Maia grinned and his teeth shone like daggers and his chains burst and the manacles thinned to small golden wires and fire burned through him as the Maia’s power healed him, sewing his lashes and rubbing away his bruises and nauseating his soul with some fell sustenance he had long been denied.

When he awoke again it was to the ravens pecking at him, and he thought again that he was dead and they were there to clean his bones like they had for his Father, white and alone amid the rock.

 

II.

He cannot speak when he returns. There still a bracelet-manacle binds him, tight around his wrist and the only indication of his stay in Angband. The people of Gondolin see not that he is changed and think only that he was away mining again. He wants to scream, scream all that had occurred, wants to beg someone, anyone to take notice that his smile does not reach his eyes, that he betrayed them!

No one asks, and he finds he cannot even write it down, for the bracelet of thin gold burns him and ever is he haunted by those eyes, terrible eyes of wheeling fire which mock the sunlight and Idril. He cannot sleep save when he hides like a child in his armoire, cannot look in the mirror, and remains mute.

The ravens mourn with him. He knows now that they had been _his_ servants, but that they too betrayed unwillingly, that they too saw those eyes of that Maia in their minds and that it compelled them so. He forgave them, and they brought him things to cheer him, yet it only made him tremble.

He avoided Idril at all costs, and no longer did her singing bring him hope.

 

III.

Eärendil is young, and curious of that Uncle which he had never before seen, and desired to hear of what he had to tell of life beyond the walls of Gondolin. Lómion hates him at first, the golden child of Idril and Tuor, half wild-man. But the child follows him and talks incessantly, and seems not to notice his sickness, his fear and that guilt.

Soon he tells him of the Dwarves and their cities, of Nan Elmoth and the lights that played under the forest. He makes him many toys of soldiers and animals and ships. Eärendil gives him back a gift of his own, shells his Father had from his trip to the sea, drawings from his imagination and Lómion holds them all dear, loathing himself with each one the more.

He hated that fate would have it the one who cared to ask him how he was was only a child, that the one who was excited to see him and speak to him was Tuor’s son, but also Idril’s whom still in some painful love he desired. But he could not scorn Eärendil, and those moments he had with him were among the only in those long months where he would smile and feel it, though soon his mind was shaded again by the eyes of that Maia.

 

IV.

For his seventh birthday, he gives Eärendil a ship in a bottle, and when he sees the boy’s joy he thinks that he is a star, a hope yet among the gloom of his heart.

 

V.

It is the night before the Gates of Summer and he sits against Aredhel’s stone grave and the ravens flock to him and hang their heads low and the rats and shrews and moles and mice come out of the nooks and stare at him and he knows that they are fleeing the city, sensing the coming of Morgoth. They leave him one by one but he doesn’t move, seeming as a statue.

In his hands he clasps that bit of amber with the moth and in his other he grips his Father’s old sword and it speaks to him in a voice he wished he could forget:

_“Here shall fail all your hopes. . .”_

 

VI.

He holds Eärendil close to him even when Idril tears away and the child holds onto him, scared and confused: but he would protect him. He knew that Tuor had a javelin under his cloak and that it was poisoned, and Idril would not listen but he would protect her too and she would see that he wasn’t like Eöl.

The smoke arose about him as they fought and yet he would not let him take them from him. Only he could protect them from that javelin, from the poison, from the cage, _from those eyes._ But Eärendil, seeing his Uncle’s madness, at last bit Lómion’s hand, and Tuor used his surprise to break his arm, releasing his son who ran towards Idril.

Lómion paused for a moment, looking down at the gold that had broke from his wrist, then to Idril wherein he trembled in crippling despair and Eärendil whom clutched onto her in fear, though he had come to love him too. He wanted to speak and tell them all he was now free, that those terrible eyes were gone.

 

VII.

He did not realize he was falling, and it seemed that the fires that flared from Gondolin were not fires, but the sunlight through the dark clouds, but Idril’s smile and her golden hair, and the homeliness of the forge. And the sound of the battle was not a battle, but the song of Aredhel Ar-Feiniel in Nan Elmoth as she put him to sleep when he was young, or Idril each dawn outside his window, or Eärendil’s laughter. And the smell of smoke was the smell of the forges of the Gonnhirrim, and the roses in soft pinks and yellows, and the honeysuckle that grew in summer.

For a second he imagined he was among them all and that they embraced him and forgave him. But the white in the corner of his eye seemed to pull him, and he knew it was only the bones of his Father that held him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will now go sit in the dumpster where I belong.  
> Again, if you read this monster, thank you!! I mean it :* :* I know no moderation sometimes when it comes to words D: Hopefully now this work will rest in peace, along with tragic Maeglin.   
> ***


End file.
